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Home , Floor Games, Little Wars, The War of the Worlds

12 FOOTNOTES TO HISTORY

Little James H. Hillestad, Member No. 6, pays tribute to the prolific writer H.G. Wells and notes his fondness for W. Britains

ne hundred years ago, TOP H(erbert) G(ordon) Wells H.G. Wells playing published the classic Little Wars. Wells is best known for his scientific fantasies The Time Ma- ABOVE chine (1895) and The of the Little Wars by H.G. Worlds (1898). Wells In January 1913, war was loom- ing in Europe and Little Wars RIGHT was both an expression of Wells’ The battlefield in passion for toy soldiers and his Little Wars fears about the coming slaughter. Those fears manifested themselves in Little Wars. In his own words, with toy soldiers. Inspiration for non with a match stick. He then “You have only to play at Little Little Wars came from a friend methodically aimed the cannon, Wars three or four times to realize who was visiting for lunch. The released the spring in the breech, just what a blundering thing Great friend was drawn to five W.Britain and hit one of the soldiers. As War must be.” toy soldiers aligned on a table top, Wells put it, “He fired a shot that In Little Wars and its companion along with a cannon. He drew still echoes round the world.” (1911), Wells de- a chair to the table, sat down, The game that developed was veloped a set of rules for playing and proceeded to load the can- based on the spring breech- FOOTNOTES TO HISTORY 13

An Apocryphal Tale -- True or False? loader 4.7 inch naval gun made by W.Britain in 1902. It fired a Recently discovered archives reveal that Wells, Kaiser Wilhem, and wooden cylinder, about an inch two other gentlemen played a game of Little Wars in 1913. The two long, and had a screw adjustment “other gentlemen” were not identified by their full names, but were for elevation and depression. Wells referred to as “General von M.” (Moltke?) and “Lord K.” (Kitch- regarded it as “an altogether ener?) Wilhelm refused to use the large W. Britain 4.7 inch naval elegant weapon.” guns in the Wells’ toy collection for fear that his beloved miniature Initially the rules of movement BELOW soldiers would be damaged by the wooden dowels used as projec- stipulated that an -man A simulation of tiles. might be moved a foot, and caval- Little Wars using The Kaiser won the game and credited his triumph to strategic ry-men two feet. Participants were W.Britain’s French Foreign Legion, movements and bold decisions. Wells was horrified. Instead of dem- to be provided with string cut to Arabs of the Desert onstrating to Wilhelm the futility of war, the game had given him the various movement lengths to and 4.7 inch naval false confidence in his ability as a military tactician. Wells was heard facilitate advancement or retreat guns, circa late to say “What have I done? I wish I could invent a time machine, of the miniature combatants. 1950s. travel into the past, and take measures to avoid this entire affair!” To be effective, an piece

required that four men should be within six inches of a gun for it to be in action at all. Careful mea- surements from where the can- non-fired matchsticks fell would determine the number of casual- ties. A time clock insured that the tempo of the battle would not suffer from inordinate delibera- tions. The terrain of the battlefield was to be simple. Wooden blocks would be used to simulate forts, and a sprinkling of model trees would lend “realism.” Over a period of time, the rules were fine-tuned and expanded (Little Wars is 114 pages long) to include hand-to-hand fighting and LEFT even treatment of prisoners. The Legion The writer, Colin Middleton RIGHT Murry, recalled a war game on The Arabs a childhood visit to Wells in the 1930s. “He rushed around franti- cally winding up clockwork trains, constructing bridges and fortifi- cations, firing pencils out of toy cannons. It was all quite hysteri- cal -- quite unlike any grown-up behavior I had ever known.”

Happy anniversary, Mr. Wells. You Did you know? are an inspiration to us all!

“” was broadcast as a Halloween on the Columbia Broadcasting network on October 30, 1938. The program was narrated by actor . Jim Hillestad is a frequent The first two-thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were contributor to The Standard presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which and is proprietor of The Toy suggested to many listeners that an by Soldier Museum. His museum, was actually in progress in New Jersey. Crowds containing more than 35,000 that gathered at the landing site were reported to be figures and a large collection incinerated by the space craft’s “heat-rays.” of militaria, is located in Immediately following the broadcast and for days the Pocono Mountains of following, there was wide-spread panic among certain northeastern Pennsylvania. listeners who had believed that the events described in the program were real. This, For directions and hours, call despite Welles’ reminder at the end of the broadcast that the program was a Hallow- him at 570 629-7227 or een concoction. As he put it, it was the equivalent “of dressing up in a sheet, jumping visit his website: out of a bush, and saying Boo!” www.the-toy-soldier.com